This lesson is taken from NASA's Phytopia: Discovery of the Marine Ecosystem written in partnership with Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Science with funding from the National Science Foundation.
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Students observe the surface temperatures of a variety of surface types found in a suburban environment.
Students watch a video explaining albedo and its impact on Earth. The video shows visualizations of albedo across Earth and how it can change. Students will interpret the images in the video and answer questions about albedo.
In this interactive, students will observe the effects of albedo, clouds, aerosols, and greenhouse gases on Earth's Energy Budget and differentiate between the concepts of reflection and absorption.
In this interactive, students will identify the forms of energy we receive, analyze patterns in the amount of incoming solar radiation over time, and explain why some locations on Earth have greater variability in the amount of incoming solar radiation throughout a year.
In this interactive, students will identify and describe the different components and flows of energy of the Earth's Energy Budget diagram as well as the imbalances that exist in Earth's Energy Budget.
Students can interact with NASA data to build a custom visualizations of local, regional, or global plant growth patterns over time, using the Earth System Data Explorer to generate plots of satellite data as they develop models of this phenomenon.
Students interpret a graph of surface temperatures taken from city districts and other types of communities.